Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant on dictators, dance music and staying 'Super' Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant on dictators, dance music and staying 'Super' The Pet Shop Boys' new album arrives three decades after the band's debut. Post to Facebook Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant on dictators, dance music and staying 'Super' The Pet Shop Boys' new album arrives three decades after the band's debut. Check out this story on USATODAY.com: CancelSend A link has been sent to your friend's email address. Posted! A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. Join the Nation's Conversation To find out more about Facebook commenting please read the Conversation Guidelines and FAQs Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant on dictators, dance music and staying 'Super' Elysa Gardner , @elysagardner, USA TODAY Published 10:42 a.m. ET March 31, 2016 | Updated 12:04 p.m. ET March 31, 2016 Pet Shop Boys Chris Lowe, left, and Neil Tennant released their first album 30 years ago.

(Photo: Joseph Sinclair) When Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the pop duo Pet Shop Boys began writing songs for their new album, it wasn't with the intention of celebrating a milestone. It was only later, says Tennant, that the musicians realized the 30th anniversary of their first album, 1986's Please, was approaching. "I'm not being blasé about it," he insists. "It's amazing." Or Super, as the new release, out April 1, is titled. He and Lowe recorded mostly in Berlin, and the latter superlative is a favorite among Germans, Tennant explains. "Americans might even use it. In England, it sounds a bit 1960s." Tennant describes Super as a logical successor to Pet Shop Boys' last outing, 2013's Electric. "We've become electronic purists." While that element has always been central in their music, he notes, "Most of our albums have had orchestras on them, and guitar.

This is all electronic, apart from backing vocals." As ever, the pair blend the romantic and the satirical, "along with a sense of social realism." The third element is pronounced in songs such as Sad Robot World, which reflects an ambivalence about technology, and The Dictator Decides. The latter was crafted with Syria's Bashar Assad and North Korea's Kim Jong Un in mind — though some who have heard the song assumed the inspiration was Donald Trump. (Photo: Pelle Crépin) "The whole world is following the United States right now," says Tennant, and not cheekily. The Englishman sees parallels with his own country, where "people have been disillusioned by the banking crisis and the financial collapse. It started in the '80s, when Reagan and Thatcher deregulated the system...It was in the '90s that the money culture really got going, and now it's come to full fruition." Super's first single, The Pop Kids, unveiled in March, references the early '90s specifically — not the political climate, but the club scene in London.

Tennant says it was inspired by a friend's story, though he has observed the progress of electronic dance music at home and in the USA, and found differences. "You've made EDM over there, really," he says. "You've ramped it up and created this club culture that's very different from the European club culture. At the clubs in Britain, you had people dancing with bottles of Evian water ... (In the USA) there was brandy and expensive champagne, and the superstar DJ thing got even bigger. It became a sort glamorous culture, one of conspicuous consumption — and it's become the sound of pop music." (Photo: Mark Farrow/PSB) Pet Shop Boys' own evolution will be traced in a four-part BBC2 documentary series this month, and Tennant and Lowe will play four soldout nights at London's Royal Opera House in July. Tennant is hoping they'll also perform in the USA in the not-too-distant future. Fans can expect their usual attention to visual detail, also obvious in Super's album art. "I wanted it to be shiny and colorful," Tennant says, "which I think the album is.

With some darker edges, of course." 86 CONNECT TWEET 1 LINKEDIN COMMENTEMAILMORE Read or Share this story: NEVER MISS OUT Life Be a pop culture maven. Get the news, reviews and the juiciest celebrity stories that keep you in the know, Monday-Friday. The Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant Explains How the World Works | SPIN The Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant Explains How the World Works Beloved dance-pop duo's singer talks Madonna, Bruce, and the band's thumping new LP 'Electric' Kenny Herzog // July 9, 2013 Share < br />this article: CREDIT: Photo by Carsten Windhorst In early ’80s London, rock critic-vocalist Neil Tennant and architect-keyboardist Chris Lowe constructed a different, far more arch and playful life for themselves as the duo Pet Shop Boys . They were fascinated by the club scenes in their native U.K. and New York City, the latter of which was exploding with innovations from Latin Freestyle DJs and rising pop stars like Madonna.

Those influences shaped their 1984 single “West End Girls” and seminal ’86 debut LP, Please, the beginnings of a career that has made them worldwide cult heroes, and more than an occasional mainstream success, for their commanding, intellectually teasing dance-pop. The twosome’s latest full-length, Electric, lives up to those high standards. Produced by Stuart Price (Madonna, the Killers, Kylie Minogue, Scissor Sisters), the new effort is a startlingly contemporary record of massive beats, surging tempos, and euphoric, nasally crooned paeans to the power of sound. Speaking on the phone from London, Tennant, 58, shared with us the secrets for how these Boys have stayed fresh for more than 30 years. Chris has said Electric is about rediscovering the joys of youth. What joys did you discover? We first recorded in New York exactly 30 years ago, and we were listening to Latino dance music on the radio. I had a cassette of Madonna’s first album, because I was a journalist and I had an advance. We were listening to 92KTU on the radio, and it was a very powerful influence.

Somehow, it’s all re-emerged on [Electric], and I don’t even know how. It wasn’t a deliberate strategy, but it seems to have some of that young flavor of New York in the early ’80s. Throughout the album, the music’s got a lot of space in it. If you listen to electronic dance music of the early ’80s period, like for instance, Madonna’s first album [1983’s Madonna] — there’s a lot of space in the music, too. It’s not filled up with samples and clever keyboard parts. [That era’s music] has a slightly naïve technological approach in that the synth-bass lines are probably played live, so the timing of the records is a little unsteady. If you listen to Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam’s [1985 single] “I Wonder if I Take You Home,” she’s singing totally out of tune, but there’s something really great about it. What differentiates yourselves, Depeche Mode, and others from the reunion circuit? Ourselves and Depeche Mode have never broken up, so when you don’t break up, you don’t get the great moment where you come back together again.

[Laughs] You have the continual history, which I think is a testament to your integrity that you are doing this music because you want to do it and you love doing it, and you’re not just a sort of genre-hopper. You want to feel that the potential for new sounds and new songs is still possible for your new music. If Chris and I were just touring the songs from our first two or three albums, we would have given up and done something else. But the backbone of the Pet Shop Boys is that we love going to the studio and writing new songs. We do it for pleasure as much as anything else. It’s just a wonderful thing we share between the two of us, and that’s why we keep on doing it. Once we’re done [working on an album], we really want our album to be a huge, massive international hit, then we deal with the disappointment. Is there any desire for the success of your 1986 to 1988 “Imperial Phase”? You can grab [success] at certain parts, but I don’t think we ever did that. Success came to us, and we became a kind of huge cult band around the world.

The Pet Shop Boys are a household name — in Britain and Europe, anyway. It’s a complicated thing, because is [success] even about music, really? Is it just about sex? Are the Rolling Stones still selling sex in their early seventies? I sort of think they are. Is Madonna still selling sex? I sort of think she is. How has rock music in general shown up in your own music over the years? When rock’n’roll is good, it’s really pop music. My favorite records by Bruce Springsteen are pop records: “Dancing in the Dark,” “Tunnel of Love,” Streets of Philadelphia.” I think the cover we’ve done of the Bruce Springsteen song [“The Last to Die”] on this album [Electric] makes it into a pop song. But we haven’t changed it any way at all. It’s just done in a pop style rather than his E Street Band style. We could do a lot of Bruce Springsteen — not that we will. They’re very powerfully written songs with good melodies and quite simple chord changes, more simple than our chord changes, so they take to the electronic treatment.

Where I have a division from rock music is when it ceases to be about the excitement in the songwriting and it becomes about ego. But I also break with pop music when it becomes about ego, and there’s a lot of ego in pop music. How do you guys differentiate between having a “style” and projecting ego? Well, we design the shows as a sort of whole. The idea is the music and the visuals become one experience. It’s normally a multimedia experience. There might be other performers on the stage as well and a lot of film. And this tour [that] we’re going to bring to the United States in September, it’s a very electronic, high-energy, hi-tech experience. Our last show was extremely theatrical, more colorful than this one. This one is dark and more electronic, but it’s got an incredible pulse and pace to it. It’s amazing, because it’s become a very conservative thing where people think it’s almost rude if performers perform new songs and that all the audience wants to hear is the hits.

If I go see David Bowie, I don’t just want to hear “Jean Genie,” “Suffragette City” and “Let’s Dance.” I want to hear some weird tracks from Diamond Dogs. I want to hear some of side two of “Heroes”. We’ve applied that [attitude] to our show. You get “West End Girls” and “Always on My Mind” but you also get new songs, you get rediscovered songs like “I’m Not Scared.” The idea is to make a whole sweeping statement that encapsulates everything we’ve done. How do you feel about how contemporyary R&B production has been emphasizing dance music? The giant melting pot of contemporary pop, American and European, is interesting. It’s got house music, electronic music, electronic ’80s music, hip-hop, R&B, and it’s all being stirred around. Coldplay are friendly with Jay-Z and Beyoncé. There’s a lot of on-the-floor kind of records, which I find immensely tedious. But it is interesting: You get Snoop Dogg on what, to me, sounds like a Euro-cheese record. Actually, a lot of this music sounds to me to be very early-’90s.

Rather than ’80s, it sounds very early-’90 — that period where we had sort of Euro-disco meets grunge. It was a tricky period. Speaking of growing pains, have you met any of the babies from ’89’s “It’s Alright” video ? Oh, I’m always meeting them. In the last 18 months, I think three of the babies have come up to me. One was on the street. I think one was in an airport, maybe even on the same flight. And another one was in a club or something. Actually, one of the mothers of the babies came up to me and said, “My baby was in your video.” It was a really enjoyable video. It was in Notting Hill somewhere, and we got there, and all the babies were asleep — all the 50 babies. And then one of them cried [and] they all fucking woke up. It was Chris’ idea, that video. I still think it’s a very original idea, and it terms of the style, it was meant to be a tribute to Robert Mapplethorpe, the way it was lit in black-and-white. So all the babies seem to be well-adjusted?

Oh yeah, they seem to be thriving. We should get them all together for a party. We could have a joint 30th birthday party for them. Nearly 30 years ago, you dismissed the band’s initial accolades. Were you just being coy? To be honest, we didn’t feel the slightest bit ambivalent about it. What we did was we never wanted to appear triumphant and become egotistical monsters and say, “Hey, we’re number one, pour the champagne.” Although inwardly, we probably felt a bit like that. [Laughs] I mean, it was sort of a ridiculous period in a way. A year after I left Smash Hits magazine, we were number one in America. [Laughs] It’s a tribute to American taste as well, I think. The Pet Shop Boys' Commandments | Music | The Guardian The Observer The Pet Shop Boys' Commandments After two decades at the top, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe are your perfect guides to the stars and the stalkers - and the business of pop.

Interview by Miranda Sawyer Sunday 19 October 2003 12.38 EDT First published on Sunday 19 October 2003 12.38 EDT Share on Messenger Close Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, as The Pet Shop Boys , are the most successful pop duo of all time: a statement which, in a stat-swamped world, means nothing, except that they've achieved their globe-smacking triumphs through consistently making ace records. 'We'd have made more,' says Chris, 'but I kept forgetting to write songs down.' The Pet Shop Boys are bringing out a double CD of their 33 Top 20 singles, called PopArt. The hits are split into Pop and Art, 'which was easy', says Neil. 'The songs on Pop are classic, euphoric, and Art is more bitter and twisted.' After almost 20 years in music ('West End Girls' was first released in 1984), Neil and Chris say, that if they started now, 'we'd be different. We'd be Basement Jaxx'. Settle down at the back. Here followeth The Pet Shop Boys' Ten Commandments of Pop.

1: Thou shalt find thy niche Neil: In the beginning, you develop a patch of what you do: with us, it was funny songs with social comment, romantic love songs from a slightly different perspective or songs you can dance to. And that's three quite big areas. We were doing that 20 years ago. I don't believe in progression. I think you perhaps become more sophisticated, get more adept, but I don't think you really, ultimately progress. Chris: But artists can spend years until they progress to something that's worth having. What about Cézanne? There was definitely a progression until he got it right. Neil: No, he just turned into Cézanne late, he didn't find his Cézanne patch until then. Recently, I had to find our demos for a Radio 2 documentary, and I found the one for 'Let's Make Lots Of Money'. I was thinking, 'This is awful, doesn't really sound like us', and then, suddenly, something's added, and you think, 'Aha! The Pet Shop Boys are in the building', and you've written your first hit. 2: Thou shalt write a hit Chris: Ah, but what is a hit?

We were at Number One in America once, and our A&R man said, 'Yes, but is it a hit?' Neil: He was right, because you do know a hit. This year we've had quite a few. Tatu, that was a proper four-weeks-at-Number-One type hit. Elton. Beyoncé. The Eminem one from 8 Mile , 'Lose Yourself'. Fantastic record. We often sit down and say, 'Today, it's hit day!' But our minds go blank... Chris: ... so we get in the car, drive to the local Woolworths and buy Now That's What I Call Music 94 , and go through it, saying, 'Ooh, don't like that. Or that. Crap. Rubbish. God, I hate pop music!' And then, we're back to square one. Neil: But it's great going to Woolworths. Chris: Woolworths in Consett, it doesn't get more exciting than that. Neil: We've never lost touch with the street, I'll say that for us. 3: Thou must be prepared to be misunderstood Neil: Some people think that with pop, everything you write is autobiographical.

Chris: Well, Robbie Williams's entire back catalogue is about him. Neil: With us, though, maybe because my voice sounds like it has a distance from the material, people think the opposite. They think everything we do is ironic. Chris: That's because you're incapable of feeling such emotion. Neil: But we've only ever written about three ironic songs, and it gets embarrassing, people thinking it's ironic, when it's not. There are people in America, who say to us, 'I get you guys. I really get you guys. You know, they don't get you, but I do.' And you think, 'What is there to get?' They think they've got the joke. Chris: But there wasn't one. 4: Thou must be a bit crap for a while Neil: We haven't sold our shares in electroclash just yet. We really like it. It's like what people used to call 'sleaze' in the early Eighties. Chris: Electroclash is good because it's stayed underground. Neil: If I was to give the electroclash scene some advice, I'd say: carry on with what you're doing. Although, someone should think about the songwriting a bit more.

And also, just don't sample attitudes from the past: being all cold and electronic, that never really goes that far. Chris: The clubs are good fun, though. Having a laugh, really having a good time. Neil: You know, there'll be a man walking in wearing vegetables and you think 'Great! This is what it's meant to be about!' And it's not very professional. Everything is so bloody professional nowadays. You know, boy bands can sing. Whoever thought that would happen? It's cheating! Absolutely cheating! Chris: And they do harmonies! They're not allowed to do that. 5: Thou shalt make sure they know who thou art Chris: Shameless self-publicity works, of course: living your life as a soap opera. We never have been or will be about that. But today, you have to go to all these red carpet parties and be nice to the paparazzi, when they say, 'You're only here because of me. So therefore, you're mine and this is my house you're living in and I've every right to be on your doorstep.' I just don't follow that argument at all.

Neil: If you don't want to do that, then you have to capture people's imagination. Create something they'll like and will want to go on being involved with. And you can do that purely through music, or you can do it with music and being sexy. Really, that's the two important things: music and being sexy. Good looks have to be involved, I think. Chris: Thank God for that. We'd be nowhere without our looks. Neil: When you take the sex out of the equation - like with us - it's much harder work. Though, when we started, Chris was always in Just Seventeen. Selling sex ... Chris: I did it for a laugh. I was even in My Guy once: I was the Cover Guy. My proudest moment. But you know, even the Beatles lived their lives as a soap opera. Neil: Ultimately, The Beatles were a boy band. 6: Thou shalt be stupid Chris: Stupidity combined with arrogance and a huge ego will get you a long way. Neil: Well, if it's combined with knowing what you like. Because then you're an unstoppable force. It's easier when you're stupid, because you don't doubt as much.

Also, when you're not doing things intellectually, you're doing them instinctively, which is much better. In many ways, you don't need an intellect for pop music. Chris: We never let go. Ever. Even with punctuation. It's frightening. I can't see anyone from any record company ever writing an email to Neil and not getting it back, with corrections. 7: Thou shalt become a brand Neil: Though the contemporary idea of brand didn't really exist when we started, the idea of a group where the name and the songs were more important than the individuals has always existed. The Bee Gees were like that, and Abba. We're a brand now, so fans always have advice for us. Actually, it's exactly how I am about David Bowie. I met him backstage, and, being a fan type, I said, 'Why haven't you released 'Hello Spaceboy' as a single? It's the only single on the album.' Which is exactly what people do to us. They get annoyed, because these two stupid old gits - us - are ruining the Pet Shop Boys project.

8: Thou shalt understand the VIP area Neil: The whole culture of posh places - art galleries, posh restaurants that intimidate you - when you get a bit of fame, you suddenly see through it and you're not bothered. It's like in Ab Fab, when they're in the art gallery, and they go, 'Oh, it's just a shop.' Exactly! It's a shop selling paintings. Chris: There are people that have that confidence, who march into VIP areas. I assume I won't get in. I don't say, 'Do you know who I am?', but sometimes I'm with someone who says it for you. Then, I pretend to be all, 'Oh, please don't shame me!'. Neil: It happens in clothes shops as well. I went in one and they were looking at us as if we were thieves! And then, suddenly, it was, 'Would you like glass of water, a coffee, some champagne maybe?' They just realised. It's like a ripple, you can see it. The whole thing, the scales fall from their eyes and they suddenly go from super-snooty, to super-grovelling. Which is almost as irritating.

9: Thou shalt go mad Chris: I don't think you ever know in yourself whether you have gone mad. You exist in a bubble. There comes a point where you suddenly feel not really a part of the world, you're just passing through. Neil: But that's being prosperous, rather than being mad. I don't think we ever went mad. Maybe on tour: the tour in '91, we had some tense moments there. Chris: Mostly over suites. If one of us got a better suite than the other one. Neil: But that's not madness, it's not 'My drink and drugs hell'. We've never had a moment like that. We just get on with it. Chris: We believe in the stiff upper lip. We're not touchy-feely-cuddly. Neil: Actually, I went to therapy, once. I was claustrophobic. She told me it would take three years, twice a week, and do you know, the claustrophobia just fell away instantly. I think we haven't gone mad because we've always been able to walk the streets, we're not uniquely recognisable, like, say, Jarvis. The madness happens when you feel very exposed.

Even Madonna is always about, on her bike, with her security guard clearing the way. I think the worst thing is to have fame and no money. When you're at the bus-stop and people know you've been up there and now you're not. 10: Thou shalt get a stalker Neil: It's weird, but I still get women pursuing me. There were the stalkers that came to marry me: one from Germany, one from Poland. And I had this one English girl, outside my house with her mum. I told her to go away and her mum was so rude: 'Yes, I heard you didn't really like girls' - when she was practically selling me her daughter! And then there was the girl who tied a balloon to my house, every day, five days a week, for six months. Big helium balloons on my railings. Chris: The really funny part was that the balloon would reach up to his bedroom window, so when he opened the curtains in the morning, that was what he'd see. Neil: I'd get up, go downstairs, undo the balloon and let it float into the sky.

And one day she attached a letter saying, 'I'm coming for tea tomorrow at 4'o'clock', so I spoke to the guy who looks after my house. She rang the bell, said 'I'm here to see Neil', and he said, 'Yes, he's got something for you', and threw a bucket of water over her. She ran off down the street. It was a horrible thing to do, but I knew that once she was shocked out of it, she would stop, and she did. The weirdest thing though was when, on the escalator on Fulham Broadway station, someone had written my name and address on stickers and stuck them all the way down. Printed labels. Chris: It would have been funny if you'd gone down there and personally scraped them all off. Neil: They go through your rubbish, too. One girl came up to me and said to me, 'My friend's got all your old razor blades stuck on her bedroom wall'. Or, 'She's got all your Christmas cards, you know you threw them out last Tuesday', and, at that point, I got a shredder in. An essential privacy technique. In fact, that's my only commandment.

When you get famous, you do need a shredder. Neil Tennant: Pet Shop Boys – Pet Shop Boys ONLINE | Say It To Me NT: 53, male, London. æ: Tell us, how did you get involved in music? NT: I wrote songs from a very, very early age… from when I was 8 or 9 years old. When I was 12, I got given a guitar, and as soon as I learnt a new chord I would write a new song.And fifteen years later, when I was 27 years old, I met Chris Lowe and we became the Pet Shop Boys – I was a journalist at the time. And then we had a big hit with West End Girls and that’s when we went full time. æ: What part of your work would you say you’re proudest of? NT: I feel proud about probably everything we’ve done, really.

When Pet Shop Boys started, we tried to write our own kind of pop song that would reflect the world around us; that would have some kind of satirical humour about taking real life, the things people say to each other, and putting it against beautiful music.I think we’ve written songs that are unique to us, a commentary on the world, a commentary on the way life really is. And that’s what I’m proud of, really. æ: Tell us about your performance style. NT: We don’t do a conventional sort of rock show. We’re interested in theatre; we like the look and feel of theatre. Every time we do a show, we work with a theatre designer; this time we’re working with Es Devlin, she’s a well-known opera designer in London. We’ve worked with a lot of designers  like the architect Zaha Hadid; she did our show in 1999.We’ve worked hard over the last 30-odd years to design a kind of pop music theatre, which is the show we’re bringing to Singapore. æ: What artists do you admire?

NT: Musically, I’ve always admired David Bowie, Kraftwerk; I used to like early hip-hop; I listen to a lot of German electronica music under the label Kompakt, I like the French pop group Air and LCD Sound System. And a lot of classical music; my favourite music is in some ways classical music  Bruckner, Shostakovich, Bach. æ: Could you tell us a bit about your coming-out story? NT: It was in 1994… I was going to be interviewed by a new gay magazine in the UK called Attitude, and it was just four years old, and I thought it was a bit ridiculous to talk to a gay magazine and not to mention I was gay. It wans’t really a big deal; everyone who knew me knew. It seemed like the right time to do it, since I was going to turn 40. æ: How do you feel about the gay community in the UK today, though? NT: I think it’s changing. Some people would prefer to have a kind of gay ghetto, but I think it’s gradually going to fade away.

Whether you have children, whether you have family ties and responsibilities, that says more about you than if you’re straight or gay. æ: Yeah, I’ve noticed you’ve always resisted being labelled  you’ve even spoke out prominently against Tony Blair’s proposed introduction of identity cards in Britain. NT: They’re both the same thing, in a way. There’s an increasing trend in the world that every individual has to be defined on a piece of paper or a plastic card to prove who they are. In the same way, sexually, people like to know whether you’re gay or straight, and there’s no middle ground. When you’re gay and you’re a musician, people will then present you as a gay musician, with the inference that your audience is only gay  as if there’s no way your audience could be straight. And that’s a kind of homophobic prejudice; it’s a way to marginalise you. æ: How does that apply to gay people here, though? NT: Well, I think in Asia you have a very different situation than in Europe and America. Everything I say about being gay is based on the fact that in Britain, we have equality before the law, and it’s not necessarily the defining part of your life.

But when your sexuality is illegal and liable for prosecution, being gay is the essential part of your life, because it could get you into trouble  I know that in some parts of the world, gay people live in fear.What I hope we all aim for is to get to the point that being gay can be irrelevant, like the colour of your skin or how tall you are. What’s the situation like in Singapore? æ: There’s a law that criminalises it, but the government claims it won’t prosecute. NT: But it’s awful to be only tolerated… At any moment, that policy could change, and it’s difficult to respect a system that has that law in it. I think people have the right to be what they are, and I don’t think the government has a right to turn people into criminals. æ: I remember your last album, Fundamental, was actually dedicated to Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, the two Iranian 16 year-olds who were executed for gay sex in 2005.

NT: Our idea in making that album was to try to capture in music a sort of picture of the world since 9/11; the sort of tension and fear and the way fear was used as the driving force behind a political programme which ultimately curbs people’s civil liberties. And we dedicated it to the two boys because they were victims of a different kind of fear; the fear of homosexuality. The fundamental religious law applied was a severe example of civil liberties being not disrespected, but destroyed.I think it’s a kind of warning of where things can end up if people fear and hate each other, if governments can hate the people they’re governing, if there’s just a policy of hate  two boys being strangled before a crowd of 2,000 people.It’s like the case of the identity cards – we shouldn’t have to prove ourselves to the government. I think the government has to prove itself to us. æ: What’s next on the calendar for you, then? NT: We’re headliners of the Summer Sonic Festival, which is in Tokyo and Osaka.

We’ve been on tour every year now – this tour finishes in October.In 2004 we wrote a musical score for the silent film, Battleship Potemkin, and we did that for a concert in Trafalgar Square in London. We’ll be bringing that to Russia and the Ukraine.The next thing we’re going to write is an electronic music ballet to be performed in London. And I’d also like to write some new pop songs. Taken from: Which is your favourite song on SUPER? Happiness Say It To Me Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant - Tim Blanks Interview - Vogue email Neil Tennant is sitting in the Wolseley a day before he and Chris Lowe go west, flying from London to San Francisco to prepare for Pet Shop Boys’ headlining performance on Saturday night at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Annual Festival. “Is it Coach-ella or Co-a-chella?” Tennant wonders. He’ll find out soon enough. Beforehand, PSB are shaking off six months of rust—they finished the most recent leg of their Electric world tour in Mexico last October—with warm-ups this week in Oakland and Ventura, California. And there’s been a bit of fine-tuning.

“We could feel the audience getting a bit shifty in their seats mid-show with the new songs,” says Tennant. So he’s promising “a traffic jam of hits” on Saturday night. It’s been a staggering thirty years since the very first, “West End Girls.” Over time, that song has become the kind of classic to which all forms of human life have met and mated (Tennant and Lowe are always being reminded of that fact by the ardent fans who pay extra for a pre-show meet and greet). Chart-meister Pharrell Williams confessed to Tennant in Toronto recently that he wished it was his song. On Saturday night, Pharrell finishes his set at the Outdoor Theatre just as PSB walk out onto the Mojave Stage, so he’ll make their gig in time to hear the song he wished he’d written irresistibly elided with a new number, the EDM-ish raver “Fluorescent.” That’s a killer one-two that should shake the starry, starry night over the California desert. It’ll also be a measure of the way Lowe and Tennant constantly revise and refresh their material.

“Traffic jam of hits” or not, I’ve never seen a show of theirs which left me feeling like I was listening to a mere run-through of old faves (even though there are dozens of them). The sound is always evolving and so is the masterful showmanship. Pet Shop Boys’ only real peer is Kraftwerk, with whom they are coincidentally co-headlining Moogfest in Asheville, North Carolina, in a few weeks. Tennant agrees it’s a challenge translating their intelligent spectacle to a festival setting: “It’s a bit more nerve-racking because it’s not your audience. You’ve really got to fight.” He remembers one rock festival in northern Spain where the audience was particularly ill-disposed to PSB’s brand of pop music. “But we followed Beck, and we were saved, in my opinion, from being canned off stage because Beck stood at the side of the stage throughout our performance dancing and singing along with his bass player, and the audience thought, Who are we to disagree? As Monica Lewinsky once said to me, ‘Oh, I know who you are. I grew up in Los Angeles in the eighties.’ So did Beck.

Expand Photo: RexUSA; Getty Images “That’s the funny thing about festivals,” Tennant continues. “You’re always following someone like the Red Hot Chili Peppers.” Or being followed by them—you have to feel for Bryan Ferry on Friday night, who is lead-in to the hoary goth metal of The Cult. And on Saturday night? “I’m sure it will be someone much more appropriate,” Tennant says confidently. Actually, Neil, you’re following Mogwai. If PSB are purest art pop, Mogwai has always been regarded by its devotees as the apogee of art rock. Maybe that means they’ll appreciate the jackets Jeffrey Bryant has sculpted for Tennant and Lowe from 3,000 drinking straws. At the very least, I’ll be looking for selfies of the Mogsters discoing wildly in the wings while the Pets woo the dancing hordes with their sparkliest manifesto, “Love Is a Bourgeois Construct.” Tennant’s wracked nerves aside, PSB actually have brilliant form at the most famous festival in the world.

I’m talking about Glastonbury, where, on another Saturday night in 2010, PSB were playing on something called the Other Stage while Muse headlined the Pyramid Stage. “The night before, when the Flaming Lips were playing the Other Stage, Chris went to see them and there were just a few thousand people, so we were reconciled to the fact that no one would come to see us. When we got there the next day, our production manager said the actual physical space for the audience in front of the stage was already full. In the end, 50,000 people watched us, the same number that watched Muse. It was absolutely one of the best experiences,” remembers Tennant. So perhaps it’s a promising coincidence that Saturday brings a rematch: Muse is playing on the Coachella Stage at the exact same time Pet Shop Boys take to the Mojave. Now Tennant must leave to pack his giant-size Tumi for tomorrow’s trip, but there’s one pressing item before he goes. Monica…ahem…Lewinsky? “We met at Ian McKellen’s 50th birthday party. She looked iconic, like a walking Andy Warhol screen print.

Liz Taylor, perhaps.” The history of the Pet Shop Boys is crammed with hundreds of similar stories. Can’t wait to see what Coachella adds to the almanac. Pet Shop Boys asked to change their name by Peta | Music | The Guardian Pet Shop Boys Pet Shop Boys asked to change their name by Peta Would you buy records from the Rescue Shelter Boys? Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe admit that the issue is worth thinking about Animal collective ... Pet Shop Boys refuse to change their name. Photograph: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images Thursday 9 April 2009 05.02 EDT First published on Thursday 9 April 2009 05.02 EDT Close This article is 7 years old How far would you go for charity? It used to be considered gallant to sit in a bath of baked beans to raise money, but Pet Shop Boys have been asked to go one step further. Animal rights group Peta have approached them, requesting that the band change their name to the Rescue Shelter Boys, as a protest against the cruel conditions of many pet shops.

"Dear Neil and Chris," begins the letter from Peta Europe, "You have many loyal fans of the Pet Shop Boys here at Peta . We have a request that may at first seem bizarre, but we hope that after considering the following facts, you will understand why we are asking this of you: will you please consider changing your name from the Pet Shop Boys to the Rescue Shelter Boys?" Well, it certainly makes those baked beans seem insignificant. According to Peta representative Yvonne Taylor, the cuddly image of the pet shop is one that belies the often terrible conditions dogs, cats and even hamsters have to suffer while living in them. "With an emphasis on quantity rather than quality," Taylor writes, "unmonitored genetic defects and personality disorders pass from one generation of puppies and kittens to the next.

Many animals end up with abnormalities that result in both heartbreak and high veterinary bills for the unsuspecting people who buy them." The letter, posted on Pet Shop Boys' website, continues to paint a thoroughly bleak picture of the reality of pet shops before cunningly suggesting that "agreeing to change your name to the Rescue Shelter Boys, you would help raise awareness about the cruelty involved in the pet trade and encourage your millions of fans to consider giving a home to an abandoned or unwanted animal from an animal shelter. So, what do you say?" Sadly, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe could not comply with Peta's request. But according to a post on their website , they do think the request "raises an issue worth thinking about". BBC News | ENTERTAINMENT | Libel damages for Pet Shop Boys Tuesday, 21 December, 1999, 12:46 GMT Libel damages for Pet Shop Boys Paying their rent: Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant accept damages Pop duo the Pet Shop Boys have accepted undisclosed libel damages over allegations that they made a minimal contribution to songs recorded in their name.

Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe brought proceedings against academic Roger Scruton and his publisher Gerald Duckworth and Company over claims made in his book, An Intelligent Person's Guide To Modern Culture. The duo's counsel, Jane Phillips, told Mr Justice Morland that Mr Scruton's book falsely suggested there were strong and compelling grounds for believing songs recorded in the Pet Shop Boys' name were almost entirely the work of sound engineers, and that they had deceived their fans. The offending passage read: "Sometimes, as with the Spice Girls or the Pet Shop Boys, serious doubts arise as to whether the performers made more than a minimal contribution to the recording, which owes its trade mark to subsequent sound engineering, designed precisely to make it unrepeatable." The duo have worked with some of pop's biggest names Ms Phillips said the defendants recognised that the allegations were entirely without foundation, and represented a serious slur on the Pet Shop Boys' professional and personal integrity. It had caused them "considerable upset and distress", she told the High Court in London. She added the defendants had agreed to pay Mr Tennant and Mr Lowe a sum each in damages and all their libel costs.

Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, who ended a UK tour at Wembley Arena in London on Monday night, are two of the UK's most respected pop musicians. They enjoyed a string of hits in the 1980s, starting with their 1986 number one West End Girls, and including their other chart-topping singles It's A Sin, Heart and Always On My Mind. In recent years they have been less successful commercially in the UK, but they are still popular around the world. They have also collaborated with a wide variety of acts, including Dusty Springfield and Liza Minnelli in the 1980s, to David Bowie, Robbie Williams and rock band Suede in the late 1990s. Search BBC News Online

Question: The 'Pet Shop Boys' are Neil Tennant and who?
Answer: CHRIS LOWE